The news media reported yesterday that the NAR's Pending Home Sales Index for December was a huge miss, falling far short of economists' consensus expectations. This was based on the seasonally adjusted data, which is frequently misleading because the statistical manipulation often obscures the real trend. I reviewed the actual, not seasonally adjusted data. It was at the low end of the growth trend of the past 2 years, but still up 4.9% year to year. The month to month drop was slightly greater than normal for December, but is was not a significant deviation from the trend. Therefore, calling it a "huge miss" was misleading.